Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
pesticide and neurotoxin. Carbofuran, its active ingredient, is so toxic
that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is slowly
phasing it out of use.3 However, furadan is widely used in the developing
world.4 Many farmers in Kerala have relied on it to prevent crop losses,
and rumor has it that they frequently apply more of it than the state's
agricultural extension offices recommend, particularly to combat ever-
evolving pesticide resistance.
After condemning the use of furadan, George asked the trainees:
“W ho ends up eating these furadan bananas?” He pressed them: “W hen
you go to someone's home and bring a git, when you want to buy a litle
child a snack, maybe your nephew, what do you buy?” He paused for effect
and then answered, “Banana chips, right? These poisons are coming right
back into our homes!” George
—a farmer himself—decried the fact that
farmers were poisoning fellow Indians, their own brothers and sisters.
If fur adan is so poisonous, why is it used in India? W hy are any
pesticides, meant explicitly to kill a variety of organisms, used at all? I
asked these questions of many farmers I interviewed during my fourteen
months in India. The answers were not simple, and they ranged from “I
have no other choice” to “The Agriculture Department gives them away
sometimes.” One study estimated that farmers in Kerala apply over 462
metric tons of chemical pesticides, including insecticides, fungicides, her-
bicides, and rodenticides on an annual basis to their crops.5 And every
year, over three million cases of pesticide poisoning in humans are re-
ported.6 Farmers can't help being aware of the cost of their practices, as
they are the most at risk for being exposed to these chemicals, but they
often complain of being on a “pesticide treadmill,” unable to grow enough
food or make ends meet without using greater and greater amounts of
chemical inputs.7 As pests become increasingly resistant to the chemicals
used to kill them, and as agricultural output suffers from pest outbreaks,
the only solution seems to be to use more.
Chemical-based agriculture is a recent phenomenon in India, initially
promoted by the national government in the 1950s and 1960s as part of
the Green Revolution, a system of agricultural technologies and chem-
ical inputs intended to increase food grain yields. Government officials,
